Tag Archives: bam-caruso

Yet another volume of Rubble, the third that’s come up for examination here (the others being Volume 6 and Volume 9). On this one, there are a couple of better-known acts (The Pretty Things and Tomorrow) amongst the usual barrage of weird and wonderful-sounding artist names:

The Brain

Focus Three

Bamboo Shoot

Wild Silk

Mark Wirtz

The Lemon Tree

The Koobas

Aquarian Age

The Executive

The Chances Are

Ipsissimus

Edwick Rumbold

The Penny Peeps.

One aspect that I love of the Rubble series, and the Pebbles series that came before it, are the liner notes. Each volume has a brief round-up of who each artist was, along with a discography. The latter is normally very brief; such was the nature of most of these acts. Those brief round-ups all contribute, though, to an ever-nearer-to-completion patchwork of knowledge and information about a whole strand of music that is barely even known about by the vast majority of people. And there really is nothing like accumulating information that is meaningless to all but a select few people, is there?

One day in the distant future I’ll have a complete collection of all of these 1960s psychedelia/freakbeat/garage compilations, and I can’t wait. What seems like an inexhaustible volume of music must have some limits, and I presume that such a complete collection would go some way to comprising the whole lot. I wonder if at some point there will be similar compilations of unknown music from different times? There have been such collections for the punk/post-punk era, but beyond then – as far as I’m aware – there aren’t compilations covering obscure indie-pop, unknown independent label releases, and so on. Perhaps there just isn’t any interest? Or maybe I’m just not aware of compilations that do exist?

I love these 1960s garage/psychedelia/punk/r’n’b compilations, which is just as well, as there’s a never-ending supply of them. Everything from Nuggets through to Pebbles and Rubble and a billion other (some non-geologically-named) compilations have been part of the microscopic documentation of a relatively brief period of time. A furiously creative and productive time as well, as despite some element of crossover between compilations, there must be thousands of tracks compiled as a whole. Although having said that, I guess a compilation of rare, underground tracks from (for example) the first five years of this century would yield roughly a billion tracks.

This volume of the Rubble compilation series is interesting in that it exists in two versions – this, the original 1986 release, and a later 1991 release named Plastic Wilderness, sporting a completely different set of tracks in a different sleeve yet still claiming to be Rubble Nine. Not sure what that is all about; some kind of licensing problems? Just a mix-up?

I bought my first Rubble at a record fair in Oxford Town Hall about eight years ago. I came across a plastic crate full of Rubbles and was dismayed to only be holding enough cash for a single volume. It turns out that I had been forced to make the correct decision – that crate was full of reissues and since then I’ve amassed a tasty set of original releases. Except for Rubble Nine of course, of which I now own both versions. Me, a tragic and misguided collector? Never!

A note: the main typeface used on this album’s cover is Peignot. Never liked that typeface. Just in case you’re interested.